Perez: “I hope Aston Martin doesn’t improve, because fighting with Alonso is wonderful”

Four races, no points. A complex weekend in Miami for Cadillac, which in its first home GP would have liked to give its spectators a higher level performance than those seen so far. After a rather negative qualifying, with both drivers starting from the penultimate row of the grid, both Bottas and Perez managed to make a brief comeback, insufficient even to get close to the points zone, which they had never achieved at the start of the season. Not all negative Sergio Perez crossed the finish line first between the two drivers of the American team, 16th and behind Fernando Alonso, with the former Red Bull driver still underlining the positive aspects found during the weekend: “Today we raced – he commented after the race – it was a lot of fun fighting with Fernando at the end. Unfortunately he overtook me, but overall it was a good fight and I had a lot of fun. We made the most of the day and we learned a lot this weekend. We need to bring this package back to the factory to analyze everything and figure out which direction to take, but I feel like we’re not too far away from being able to make a couple of changes here and there and take a further step forward. Qualifying was very promising, as was the Sprint, and the team also did a great job during my pit stop, so you can see some real flashes of talent. In addition, returning to the duel with Alonso in the final stages of the race, the Mexican expressed nice words towards the two-time world champion: “I hope Aston Martin doesn’t improve, because fighting with Alonso is always wonderful. He’s clean and intelligent.” Problem in the pit lane 18th, last and two laps behind Antonelli. A disastrous race for Valtteri Bottas, who was also penalized with a drive-through penalty for exceeding the speed limit in the pit lane: “A difficult day. It seemed like we had made some progress with the new tyres, but the degradation was still enormous. The drive-through penalty didn’t help. In practice, my speed limiter in the pit lane didn’t activate after I pressed it, but lately we lack a bit of feedback on the buttons, so I didn’t press it hard enough – explained the Finn – this end week was important for us as a US team racing at home and we showed that we are definitely making progress in some areas. The most important lesson is that we still have work to do to find better performances, so we will analyze it as a team and continue to work.”

Automobile Magazine – F1 English News
2026-05-04 22:00:00